The Charge

Opening Statement

Here we are, back for another season of Justice League. Based on the
comic of the same name, it teams seven of DC Comics's greatest heroes --
Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, The Flash, Hawkgirl, and Martian
Manhunter -- in the fight to save entire planets from certain doom. Created by
Bruce Timm and others responsible for some of the greatest animated superhero
series -- Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated
Series, Batman Beyond, Teen Titans -- it rises beyond its
comic roots to be great TV, period.

Facts of the Case

As with the first season, the 26 episodes of Justice League are
typically multi-episode story arcs -- mostly two-parters, with a three-part
finale and a one-shot story thrown in for good measure. I'll detail the story
arcs, not the individual episodes. I should note that the episode listing on the
disc jacket is not only out of order, but they put some episodes on the wrong
discs. I'm presenting it in the episode order, not in the listed order.

* "Twilight" Superman's greatest enemy -- the powerful
Darkseid, ruler of planet Apokolips -- comes to the Man of Steel for help.
Apokolips is under siege from one of Superman's other great enemies -- Brainiac,
the near-omniscient computer from Krypton, who assimilates the knowledge of an
entire planet, then destroys it. Darkseid proposes that he and the Justice
League join forces to destroy Brainiac, to which Superman reluctantly agrees. As
Batman and Wonder Woman enlist the aid of Apokolips's sister planet, New
Genesis, and its hero Orion, Superman, Hawkgirl, and J'onn J'onzz battle
Brainiac. Can you smell the trap?

I watched just about every episode of Superman: The Animated Series
(either in reruns or on DVD), and I always loved the Darkseid episodes. He's
darker than your typical Superman villain, and more than a match for one of the
most (if not the most) powerful hero in the DC universe. Watching them
duke it out, you never know who's going to win -- and unlike the first season of
JL, it's not because they made Supes a wimp. I'm not totally satisfied
with "Twilight." While it's a strong story and darn fun to watch, the
team-up of Darkseid and Brainiac made me expect something epic, while most of
the action takes place on Brainiac's asteroid base. But, how can you complain
about an episode that features the voice talents of Michael Ironside (Darkseid),
Michael Dorn (Kalibak), and my favorite of all voice-over actors, Ron
Perlman (Orion)?

* "Tabula Rasa" Lex Luthor is back. This time, he's brought
Amazo, an android that can take on the appearance and powers (!) of the entire
Justice League.

Amazo is a JL villain going way back -- all the way to the comics in 1960 --
and for that I gotta give the creative team credit. But, I don't like the
conceit of a robot that can duplicate the superheroes' powers, even down to
Green Lantern's power ring. The whole concept feels cheap, a ploy to create a
villain that can challenge all seven of them at once. Well, at least you get the
entire League in one episode, which is rare, and you get one of the most potent
looks at the inner machinations of Batman. See, he carries around a chunk of
kryptonite, the only thing that will stop Superman. When Hawkgirl asks him why,
he has a single-word answer: insurance. That's the Dark Knight for you. Trust,
but carry insurance.

* "Only a Dream" Lex Luthor is back. Oh, wait, no he's not.
That's just the dreams of a petty crook in prison. He's part of an experiment on
prisoners to test a machine that grants psychic powers, if only for a little
while. During a prison break, he sneaks into the lab and jacks into the machine,
granting himself near-infinite mental powers. He crowns himself Doctor Destiny
and proceeds to hunt down the League...in their dreams.

The first half is hokey -- we get to see Solomon Grundy and other minor
villains attempt a prison break. The second half, while trading on a premise
we've seen before (A Nightmare on Elm Street, anyone? oh, and doesn't
Doctor Destiny look a lot like Skeletor?), is eerily effective because it's a
look inside the greatest fears of these heroes. Flash couldn't stand living in a
world all by himself. Hawkgirl's nightmare is being buried alive. And Batman?
Wouldn't you like to know -- he's seemingly the only one immune to the Doctor's
mind control. He gives perhaps the entire series's greatest gag: Batman -- in
full costume, mind you -- going into an all-night coffee shop and ordering a
triple shot.

* "Maid of Honor" Wonder Woman befriends a rich, spoiled
princess (think Paris Hilton meets Audrey Hepburn) from the tiny European nation
of Kasnia. She's set to be married, and takes Diana on a partying binge.
Everything's fine and dandy until Diana meets her fiancé: Vandal Savage. Is
he really the grandson of the Savage we saw at the end of the first season, who
sent himself advanced technology from the future, usurped Adolph Hitler from
control of Nazi Germany, and would've taken over the world if not for the
Justice League? Or is he an immortal bent on conquering the world?

Ah, Vandal Savage. He's your typical megalomaniac, trying to take over the
world with an outlandish scheme. His twist? He's immortal -- he has far-ranging
knowledge and determination that goes beyond other megalomaniacs (such as Lex
Luthor) since he knows that he can't be killed and he has forever to succeed.
Here, his scheme is carefully planned and brilliantly executed. First, become
royalty by marrying the heir to the throne. Next, kill the king and bully his
naïve wife. Then, commandeer a space station and convert it into a giant
railgun capable of targeting anywhere in the world. And, he would've gotten away
with it if not for those meddling kids. I guess it goes without saying that I
love this arc, thanks to the villain. It's nice to see a Wonder Woman-centric
episode; at least at first she is on her own, only joined later by Batman (and
aided by Green Lantern, Flash, and J'onn J'onzz when it comes time to stop the
railgun).

* "Hearts and Minds" The Green Lantern Corps enlists John
Stewart to come to their aid battling a powerful being, Despero, bent to
conquering the universe. Except, he's lost his confidence and must relearn to
use his powers. This isn't helped by his former mentor (and lover), Katma Tui,
working undercover in Despero's court.

Meh. The action's big, but it's an empty spectacle, especially compared to
the preceding arc.

* "A Better World" A time rift brings another dimension's
Justice League -- or rather, Justice Lords -- to the "real"
Earth. They capture the JL and then proceed to put the smackdown on Earth.

Alternate dimension storyline ahoy! You know, I get a little tired of
JL recycling stories from Star Trek. Perhaps the Trek writers simply
cornered the market on sci-fi type stories between 29 years of television and
ten feature films. Hell, they even recycled their own stories. In my review of
last season's set, I noted that "War World" had a plot similar to
three stories from the original Trek season, and I know that at least The
Next Generation and Voyager (I never watched Deep Space Nine
or Enterprise) shared similar gladiators-in-space stories. Here, it's a
recycling of that Spock-with-a-goatee alternate universe story, with the evil
Federation and the warship Enterprise. While it's cool to see our heroes duking
it out with bad versions of themselves, it still nags at me that I've seen this
before. Best thing about the ep: Bad Batman captures Good Batman and explains to
him that there's no way to escape, because he thought of everything Good Batman
would have. He's right, so Batman makes no effort to escape. It's up to Flash
(there's no Bad Flash; he had died in the line of duty) to be clever enough to
free them, which he does by speeding up his heart so fast that it appears he
flatlined. I always knew there was more to him than running really fast and
tripping on rocks.

* "Eclipsed" A snake-like entity, encased in a black
diamond, possesses people until it gets to Wonder Woman. Mayhem -- and your
standard plan to take over the world -- ensues.

I didn't like this one so much. Superhero stories should be something
special, not the sort of run of the mill evil-entity-takes-over-person-of-power
plot that you'd see on...hey, it's another Star Trek ripoff! Did the
entire writing staff get the box sets for their birthdays?

Season Two had some great highs ("Maid of Honor," "Comfort
and Joy," "Starcrossed"). Unfortunately, along with it went some
pretty mediocre stories, and this arc is the biggest "WTF?" of the
season. The first season's superb "The Enemy Below" established
Aquaman as a warrior fiercely dedicated to defending the underwater kingdom of
Atlantis. Here he's nominally involved in saving Atlantis, but it's the entire
world at stake, not just his kingdom -- and hell, there's no body of water in
sight. Not even a drinking fountain. And making Solomon Grundy a borderline
hero? The guy's nothing but a human tank, DC's answer to the Incredible Hulk but
without Bruce Banner buried in the background, and Grundy doesn't posses the
mental faculties for the transformation they attribute to him. Sorry, but I call
shenanigans on this episode.

* "Secret Society" The Justice League isn't working together
as a team, and Gorilla Grodd is there to assemble the B-list baddies to exploit
their weaknesses. Will they learn to work together? Does Hawkgirl wear a funny
hat?

Come on! Wave after wave of lame stories plague the middle of this
season. We get yet another team-up of B-list villains like The Shade and Killer
Frost in what should be yet another vain attempt to defeat the JL, while they
almost succeed thanks to [fill in the blank with invented malady]. Here the
invented malady is a lack of teamwork. You gotta be kidding me. I could see the
"lesser" JL members having a problem taking these baddies on
single-handed, but you're telling me that Superman or Wonder Woman or Green
Lantern couldn't kick their asses? Writers, stop tying their arms behind their
backs!

* "Hereafter" An association of Superman's foes -- Metallo,
Kalibak, Toyman, Weather Wizard, and Livewire -- join forces to defeat him. And
they succeed...or so it would seem. As the Justice League and the rest of the
world mourns the death of Superman, he's been flung 30,000 years into Earth's
future. Stripped of his powers (thanks to the diminished output of the sun), he
must try to survive on the desolate ruins of future Earth. That is, until he
encounters a certain immortal foe, who had destroyed the human race only months
after Superman's disappearance.

This arc is a real split bag. The first episode is almost all action, and
you get a reappearance of an ally from the Superman series, Lobo. I despise the
character (and the lame faux-metal music they play when he's on screen), but
he's voiced nicely by Brad Garrett. It's sad to see the world mourning the death
of Superman, though it's also good to see a key moment from the comics brought
to life. And, it's yet another of those episodes like "Secret Society"
that teams B-listers in what should be a no-contest win for the JL. The second
episode is far superior. Here you get Superman surviving on a desolate planet
without his powers, fashioning a sword, growing a beard, dressed in furs. It's a
"what-if" dream. It gets even better when he encounters Vandal Savage,
who has been doomed to immortality on a world he destroyed. It's not an episode
for kids -- not in the sense that it's too violent or anything, but that's it's
talky and very sci-fi. It's the sort of story you'd see on The Twilight
Zone, except with Superman. If you want an example of how Justice
League rises above Saturday morning cartoon status, look no further than
"Hereafter."

* "Comfort and Joy" After the Justice League saves a planet
from destruction, they go their separate ways to celebrate Christmas -- hey,
even superheroes take holidays off. Green Lantern and Hawkgirl, their romance
starting to blossom, go to an alien planet to celebrate her way. If you
guessed this includes a rowdy bar fight, you'd be correct. Flash goes to an
orphanage in Capitol City to bring the Christmas spirit to the orphans. They
want a new hot toy, and he pulls out all the stops to get one -- which in Flash
style means running to Japan to get one from the factory. Superman brings J'onn
back to the farm in Smallville, where the Martian gets to see another side of
the powerful hero -- the Clark Kent side of him.

Wow. Just wow. You expect big action and heroics from Justice League,
but you don't expect that it could be so touching as well. If you have a heart
and appreciate the holidays as much as me, "Comfort and Joy" will
really hit a nerve. The best part is seeing J'onn, a cynic who sees the worst in
humankind, discovering the joy and selflessness that accompanies Christmas. I'd
compare this to an episode from another animated series, Futurama. In its
fifth season, it aired "Jurassic Bark," which centered on Fry (a man
who was cryogenically frozen in 1999 and reawakened in 2999) and his
relationship with his dog. It had the usual humor and hijinks, but also an
emotional undercurrent that, at the very end, will rip your heart out if you
have one.

* "Wild Card" The Joker rigs bombs (in the plural) on the
Las Vegas strip, then televises the Justice League's resulting attempts to find
and disable them. If that wasn't difficult enough, they must face the Royal
Flush Gang, playing-card themed baddies.

This arc is a lot of fun. Sure, the Royal Flush Gang doesn't seem like
they'd be much of a threat -- honestly, can the bulked-up Ten really be more
than a match for Superman? -- but this ep is really about Joker's antics. He
hosts the televised spectacle, and Mark Hamill has never been better as Joker.
Plus, you get great doses of Harley Quinn, the former psychologist who succumbed
to Joker's charms and is now pathologically loyal to the crazed killer. I look
forward to Joker-centric stories just to get her involved. What's interesting to
note is that the Royal Flush Gang is voiced by the cast of Teen Titans,
which would've been starting production around the time this ep was made. And,
the Royal Flush gang (or at least another incarnation thereof) first appeared on
another Timmiverse series as a foe of a later Batman on Batman Beyond.
Sadly, this would be the last time Hamill would voice The Joker on Justice
League or Justice League Unlimited, thanks to internal politics at DC
(they wanted to keep Batman's villains constrained to The Batman, which
launched on The WB alongside JL's third season).

* "Starcrossed" The Justice League is shattered when it's
revealed that Hawkgirl has been a spy for the Thanagarian empire. She thought
she was there to help her people scout Earth to help defend the planet against
the Gordanians, with whom the Thanagarians have been locked in war for
centuries. The Thanagarians, led by Hawkgirl's fiancé, Hro Talak, are
really there to build an interstellar bypass...er, I mean, a hypergate, which
will allow the Thanagarians to jump through hyperspace and strike at the heavily
defended Gordanian homeworld. Naturally, the hypergate will destroy the Earth
upon activation. The Thanagarians place Earth under martial law and capture the
Justice League. They escape and are branded as terrorists, and must go
underground to survive.

I first saw this three-episode arc when it was sold as a feature-length
movie, where they strung the episodes together without interruption. It really
worked best that way, but that's not to detract from its presentation here.
Hands down, this is the best story arc ever on Justice League, and if it
weren't for the excellence of Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, I'd say it's
the best thing Bruce Timm ever produced. "Starcrossed" is big and
epic, just the sort of massive scale threat that the Justice League deserves.
It's awesome to see them battling hundreds of Thanagarians, who are just as
powerful and determined as Hawkgirl. It's awesome to see Batman blow the lid off
all their secret identities (though technically, Wally West is the only one that
was in much question; back from the "World's Finest" story arc on
Superman: TAS we knew that Batman and Superman mutually knew each others'
identities, and John Stewart, Wonder Woman, and J'onn J'onzz didn't really have
alter egos). It's awesome to see how the story plays itself out, with Batman's
kamikaze run, John and Hro fighting over Hawkgirl, and everyone else kicking
ass. While I'll always reach for the movie version, this is a story that I can
easily watch over and over. This is the A+ that defines A+ stories.

The Evidence

Like any television series, Justice League spent its first year
getting its bearing. The creators weren't sure how much story the animation
could tell, so the canvas was not as large at the beginning. They had to learn
how to make seven heroes of varying abilities, power levels, and personalities
work together. They had to let the Man of Steel be as strong as possible instead
of the easily-beaten wimp of earlier episodes.

For the most part, the second season corrects these problems. First off,
Superman is really allowed to be as powerful as we all know he can be. There's
no more making him a wimp to suit the stories. Sure, there's a few episodes that
make you wonder what the writers were thinking, like "Secret Society"
and "Wild Card," but for the most part this is the Superman we
expected coming in. The only time he'd be better on the series was during the
finale, when he absolutely pounds the stuffing out of Darkseid. There's better
examples of teamwork this season. Even if the premise of "Secret
Society" is that they're not working together, you still get to see
everyone trying. Individually, everyone gets a time to shine. I was
particularly gratified to see Flash serve more useful purposes this season,
especially in "Wild Card" where his speed means the difference between
life and death. But, he was also prominently featured in "Only a
Dream," "A Better World," "Eclipsed," and "Comfort
and Joy," and all took him beyond the first season's one-note portrayal. He
gets the award for Most Improved Character.

I could go on and on about the series, but I'll spare you any further
analysis. Bottom line: Awesome show. Several arcs this season, while good,
aren't up to the level of greatness that we expect. For comic fans, this set is
a no-brainer.

In the second season, Justice League switched to broadcasting in
widescreen. It really enhances the epic feel. Likewise, Warner Bros. presents
the episodes in 1.78:1 widescreen. But, they cheaped out and present them in
non-anamorphic widescreen. I'm one of those rare people who have a widescreen
TV, and I was pissed when I put in the disc and realized it wasn't going
to take full advantage of my TV. I can't think of a single other recent TV
series release that was widescreen yet not anamorphic. I mean, it still looks
pretty good when viewed in 4:3, but...sigh. Audio is stereo; serviceable, sounds
good, but nothing impressive.

Not only is the episode order on the packaging out of order, but the extras
listing is wrong. For extra content, they list a featurette with Phil LaMarr
(voice artist extraordinaire who voices Green Lantern), which does not appear.
Instead, there's a roundtable panel with Bruce Timm, James Tucker, Dwayne
McDuffie, and Butch Lukic. The eight-minute piece looks at the differences
between the first and second season, and is enlightening for this sort of piece.
The same people (with a few personnel differences) provide commentaries on
"Twilight, Part 2," "A Better World, Part 2," and
"Starcrossed, Part 3." These guys provide great commentaries --
they're open and honest about what they see as the show's weaknesses, and they
have a blast talking with each other. If there's one failing, they tend to use
technical terms and TLAs (that's "Three Letter Acronyms") without any
explanation.

Closing Statement

During the commentary for "Starcrossed," one of the participants
jokes, "It can't be a cartoon, it's too good." That's really how I
feel about Justice League. While WB treats the DVD like it's a kid's show
(come on, seriously, non-anamorphic?), Justice League is made for all of
us who grew up but didn't get so serious that we can't enjoy superheroes. All
the people who left Superman Returns and raved about it should be
watching JL. All the people who make Smallville a hit on TV should
be watching JL. It isn't just a cartoon. It's not just superheroes. It's
good storytelling, period. It's a shame that, after five seasons, Justice
League left the air, but we have two seasons of great stories on DVD. This
is must-own.

The Verdict

If anyone suggests convicting Justice League, they'll end up a greasy
smear on my fist.